Running for Vice Chair of the DNC — because we have to be the new leaders. Laser Focus on the Local, all opinions expressed are forceful.... and my own.

Jan 14, 2017

Why I’m Running for Vice Chair

My name is Liz Jaff, and I want to help the Democratic Party.

Using the newest technology and online organizing platforms, I want to help the state parties expand their donor base, build their communities, and connect with all the incredible activists out there. These activists want to get involved but feel disillusioned with the party, and so choose to do their organizing and fundraising outside of the DNC and state parties.

We have a disconnect between the average democratic voter, the DNC, and state parties.

● States are doing incredible work to recruit candidates, run issue campaigns, and fight ALEC. The states are the front lines fighting against the many heinous policies being implemented by the republican legislature, but the average voter has no idea that this is happening or how to get involved.

● We need to connect these voters with the specific state projects so they can form a community — to donate, engage, run for office, and organize.

● Right now nowhere on Democrats.org does it allow you to organize and connect directly with states or other democratic voters.

● Donors want to invest in projects and specific candidates where they can see the impact of their donation and how it helps. They do not want to make unspecified donations to the DNC and they definitely do not want another email saying: “The sky is falling, give $5”.

● Organizers want to connect directly with campaign managers, candidates, activists, and other like-minded democrats organizing in similar spaces. They do not want to add their name to an impersonal email list that they believe goes nowhere.

We already have democrats who are fired-up and want to be involved. We need to build the platform to connect these democrats. This platform will inspire innovation, donations, and action. When built, grassroots activists will be empowered to self-start campaigns to help the states. This innovation will also allow the states to take action directly and not rely wholly on the DNC for funding and resources. Overall, we could be building closer relationships between grassroots democrats and their local parties.

We have the ability to fix this right now, because this is 2017 and the technology exists. We should always be in front of the GOP in terms of innovation.

Let’s just do it!

Here’s what we do:

Open up the Democratic party by upgrading democrats.org to be an online community based engagement platform. Voters and potential donors will be able to see all the key projects the states are working on and get involved.

Tell the incredible stories of the state parties. We have great candidates, campaigns, activists and veterans of the party. But too few democrats know how to get connected directly or how to help. We need to showcase these campaigns on the platform, say what resources they need to achieve their goals, and allow democrats to choose what campaigns and candidates to connect with. These democrats will then become investors in the party and feel that connection directly with the states.

Connect motivated groups with the state parties directly. These groups are extremely sophisticated, building membership fast, and all want to fight Trump. Working with these groups represents a real opportunity for democratic synergy. Groups like the Resurgent Left, Sister-District, Next Dems, Flippable, Rise When we Fall, Indivisible, Fem Cohort and so many others are forming pacs, recruiting volunteers, leading trainings, modeling targets, and growing donor pools. They need to be matched with the state parties and their campaigns, or at the very least be aware of what one another are working on. As democrats, we can use technology to coordinate and win.

There are no online organizer tools provided by the DNC to facilitate these connections, so we go to slack, facebook, medium, twitter, whatsapp etc. Most organizing right now is happening outside of the party. This is increasingly becoming the case for fundraising. If we, the democratic party, want to survive, we need to embrace the decentralization of communication and fundraising. The DNC needs to become the hub for this innovation to retain and improve its relationship with its voters. The DNC is the core of the party. If the DNC does not move into the 21st century with 2017 style technology we will be left behind as others build it — they will not wait for us.

We should have been doing this yesterday. As we prepare to fight Trump we need to rally all the incredible energy that is building up. Make voters become donors. Donors become candidates. And candidates become elected officials.

I want to lead the DNC through this innovation now. We are democrats and we stand together. We are better than the GOP when it comes to organizing, activating, and empowering our voters online — let’s do this.